Firefighter training is typically an expensive and potentially dangerous task. Often the realism experienced in a training environment is significantly limited due to the inability of an instructor to recreate fire activity in a safe manner.
Expensive hot fire training props are often in high demand and are limited to recreating the one scenario that they were developed for. Firefighter training is therefore limited in the variety of different scenarios that can be presented to trainee firefighters so that the value of training can diminish as the trainee becomes accustomed to the scenario that has been created. Such props also require the use of training vehicles, known as ‘pumpers’, to supply water to the training area, so that overall, significant man power is required to provide training opportunities to the fire fighters who are at the front line nozzles of firefighting equipment.
The use of breathing apparatus for front line fire fighters in an internal, structural fire fight, combined with dragging a hose line, carrying break and entry gear and other firefighting tools is made significantly more complex by the addition of smoke, fire activity and potential full structural collapse. The physical exertion and exhaustion felt by the firefight after a period of activity cannot often be experienced in a training environment.
There currently exists a need to develop firefighter training equipment that is relatively low cost, easy to deploy and adaptable to a number of training environments which nevertheless provides a high degree of realism in order to optimise the simulation experience. It would also be desirable to provide training equipment that ameliorates or overcomes one or more disadvantages or inconveniences of known firefighter training equipment.